Prediction of the surgical difficulty of single-port laparoscopic cholecystectomy.

The aim of this study was to use the difficulty score for a laparoscopic cholecystectomy procedure to predict the surgical difficulty of single-port laparoscopic cholecystectomy. From January 2009 to April 2011, single-port laparoscopic cholecystectomy was performed in 30 patients at our institution. The patients were evaluated using the difficulty score and classified into 3 groups: low, intermediate, and high difficulty. All surgeries were successfully completed without conversion to conventional laparoscopic surgery. A strong relationship was observed between the increasing score and longer surgical time. The mean surgical time was longer and the amount of blood loss was greater in the intermediate-difficulty and high-difficulty groups than in the low-difficulty group. Moreover, the high-difficulty group had a higher rate of insertion of an additional trocar than the low-difficulty group. Thus, the difficulty of single-port laparoscopic cholecystectomy is well predicted using the difficulty score.